113 - A Gap in the World

Zwingli
(1484-1531)
By Harold McCundy

About the time that Leonardo painted
His cosmic Virgin in her cave of rocks,
Zwingli, young pastor in a rockier land,
Performed his first Mass; but soon turned his hand
Against all practices, however sainted,
That spellbound, as it were, the papal flocks.

He dropped the Mass and Transubstantiation
(Pace the Corpus Christi), not surprised
That God was absent from the wine and bread;
Closed Purgatory; doubted that the dead
Could benefit from priestly conclarnation
Or prayers and candles to the canonized.

Images he disdained, and all idolatry,
Trickery of the Church, collusive art;
Bible in hand, he fought the cults and myths
(Whether saints' shrines or phallic monoliths)
And could not stomach the tender Mariolatry
So dear to the folkish mediaeval heart.

Did he foresee the cults that were to follow?
Playgirls, rock stars, the stars of Hollywood,
Versus the Virgin? The white-domed Capitol Hill
With its tall obelisk, the dollar bill,
Upstaging Rome? The Lord's name going hollow
From loud "Goddamns!" profanely understood?

Zwingli, by choice unshriven, died in battle
Leaving behind his monolithic word,
"The body they may kill, but not the soul."
-Onward the body-killing centuries roll,
While poets and prophets, envying wordless cattle,
Feed with their leaves of grass the illiterate herd.

A frequent contributor to THEOLOGY TODAY, Harold McCurdy is Professor of Psychology, Emeritus, at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. He has published six volumes of poetry.